I don't understand the difficulty in holding a race of aliens, even an advanced race, to a moral standard.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 3:39 PM, b sharp <<a href="mailto:bsharporflat@hotmail.com">bsharporflat@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
I think there is a large gap in the broad exposition of your argument,<br>
that being that we don't need a science fiction story to find a legend of a God<br>
who has the power to stop all war, genocide, disease and child rape but chooses not<br>
to. Extending your argument would seem to demand either that Gene Wolfe feels<br>
the Judeo-Christian God is morally bankrupt or that Gene Wolfe is an atheist (or both).<br>
I don't think either is true.</blockquote><div> </div><div>That, or perhaps more reasonably my argument would demand that the
Hierogrammates aren't God. They aren't, being created by the Hieros
(posthumans). The Problem of Evil, to which you're alluding to here, doesn't apply to them in Wolfe's world so there's no problem.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
I think any intelligent, thinking Christian eventually is troubled by the classic problem<br>
of an omnicient, omnipotent God who allows evil to flourish. I suspect the Hierogrammates<br>
and their relationship with the Increate are an attempt by Gene Wolfe to reconcile the<br>
contradiction (while injecting a healthy dose of science to explain religion).<br>
<br>
-bsharp<br></blockquote></div><br>I don't think the Hierogrammates have any different a relationship with God than the Hiero humans do, as both are created - one by the other, no less, according to Wolfe. Who is this "Increate" person, anyway? <br>
<br>Wolfe can logically both worship a God and condemn a race of aliens playing god.<br><br>Incidentally, the Problem of Evil has never had an answer besides "stop asking stupid questions", which is less than satisfactory in my mind. However, I'm not Wolfe.<br>
<br>Paul<br clear="all"><br>